If you’re a small business looking to expand, you’ll need to go beyond simply getting customers through your door. Real business growth takes place when you reach out to the...
If you’re a small business looking to expand, you’ll need to go beyond simply getting customers through your door. Real business growth takes place when you reach out to the huge marketplace of customers online — and you can only get there if you spend your time and money on digital marketing.
The number of people you can reach online is greater than you think. And if you want to truly succeed, you’ll need to focus your digital marketing efforts on these areas:
To make everything work, you’ll need digital marketing tools to help you get started and manage your growing scope of marketing demands.
Here’s a rundown of the most useful and effective tools to date:
Screenshot from SEMrush
Price: Free, with premium plans ranging from $119.95 to $449.95 per month
SEMrush is an all-in-one SEO workflow tool fit for growing businesses. It’s packed with tons of features that are meant to guide you through gathering and organizing analytics reports, discovering keywords, and tracking marketing campaigns.
With SEMrush, you can learn about competitor strategies in organic search, link building, and display advertising. It also provides a clear visualization of data so you can draw out conclusions from raw statistical results at a glance.
Screenshot from Ahrefs
Price: $99 to $999 per month, $990 to $9,990 per year
Like SEMrush, Ahrefs is an all-in-one SEO tool for your search and content needs. It comes with features designed to help you boost your search rankings and produce great content, including:
Additionally, Ahrefs has a wealth of resources that you can use to leverage best SEO practices for optimal results. You’ll find video tutorials, guides, and articles tackling all things related to SEO and Ahrefs features. And what’s more, the tool has a great community and support center ready to help you out.
Screenshot from Moz
Price: $99/month to $5,750/year for Moz Pro, $129 to $299 per year for Moz Local
Moz offers two types of SEO software:
Moz Pro specializes in eliminating SEO complexity from rounding up target keywords to creating custom reports. It also has features that track website rankings and compare search behaviors between desktops and mobile devices.
On the other hand, Moz Local is all about refining your local SEO listings. And this is important considering that inaccurate information discourages 73% of consumers from buying a product or service. With Moz Local, you’ll only need to provide data once for every business location because the tool will automate the rest.
Screenshot from Screaming Frog
Price: Free, with the option to buy a license for £149.99 ($206) per year
A well-optimized website is one of the keys to making it big online, no matter how small your business is. Screaming Frog SEO Spider gives you the information you need to analyze technical and on-page SEO without manually auditing every single webpage. It crawls your site to alert you of any broken links (404s), duplicate content, weak metadata, and faulty redirects.
The free version of this tool is a good start with a crawl limit of 500 URLs per year. With its paid version, you get an unlimited number of crawls and bonus functions like:
Here’s a quick guide on how to use Screaming Frog.
Screenshot from SendPulse
Price: Free, with monthly plans starting at $8 and pay-as-you-go plans from $32. VIP plans are available, as well.
While it works as a multi-channel marketing automation tool, SendPulse provides you with useful features for email marketing. For one, this online marketing tool offers a drag-and-drop editor that lets you see how your emails will look across various devices and resolutions. You’ll get over 130 templates to use for your messages, too.
SendPulse’s other email marketing tools include options to send trigger emails and create subscription forms. Automation 360 lets you make emails a part of your trigger flows, while SendPulse’s event-triggered email creation feature helps you deliver messages at specific stages of a buyer’s journey. And with the subscription form builder, you can pick the type of form you want and customize it.
Screenshot from MailChimp
Price: Free, with monthly plans ranging from $9.99 to $299
A lot of marketers swear by MailChimp to produce emails that look good across all devices. The process is made simple with its user-friendly email designer that provides an array of templates. It also stores files and comes with collaborative features.
When you connect the software to your e-commerce site, it sets up an automated campaign that sends recommendations to your contacts based on previously viewed and purchased items. With MailChimp, you’re getting an advanced delivery infrastructure complete with built-in email and domain authentication.
Screenshot from GetResponse
Price: $10.90 to $99/month, with a free trial. A premium MAX plan is also available.
While you’re nailing the content that goes into your messages, GetResponse makes sure it doesn’t end up in the spam folder. The tool boasts 99% deliverability, so you can be confident your emails actually reach your leads. It’s made more powerful with Perfect Timing and Time Travel delivery tools that trigger email blasts right when your contacts are most active.
GetResponse is equipped with its own analytics tools to keep track of email open rates, clicks, bounces, and more. After reviewing stats, you can implement split tests on subject lines, content, and sending times to optimize results further.
Screenshot from Constant Contact
Price: Starts at $20/month for the basic Email plan and $45/month for the Email Plus plan
Constant Contact is another multi-channel digital marketing tool with features to help you send engaging emails. It includes a free email template builder where you can create custom email templates and a wide selection of mobile-optimized email designs for your specific needs. Plus, Constant Contact features user-friendly editing tools so you can easily tweak your email templates.
Analytics are an important part of email marketing as well, and Constant Contact lets you see how your emails are performing with its reporting capabilities. Through the software’s real-time reporting and powerful analytics, you can keep a close eye on your email campaigns and improve the results they’re getting.
Screenshot from HootSuite
Price: $19 to $599/month. An Enterprise plan is also available.
If you’re producing content for multiple social media platforms, HootSuite is one social media marketing tool to consider. It lets you share social media content without the hassle of posting from each of your brand’s social media accounts.
With HootSuite, you can do the following tasks for your social media pages:
HootSuite offers iOS and Android apps for on-the-go social media management, as well.
Screenshot from Buffer
Price: Free, with an Essentials plan for $5/social media platform per month
Buffer makes sharing your story on social media a lot easier by promoting smooth, collaborative work within your team. The interface gives everyone access to your drafts so they can share their ideas and insights before publishing. Once they’re approved, you can queue them in for posting on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and others.
Buffer has many options to tweak your content in order to custom-tailor them to a specific social network. It also has a centralized dashboard where you can view and reply to customer questions, regardless of which platform they’re coming from.
Screenshot from Sprout Social
Price: $89/year to $279/month
This top digital marketing platform for social media sites has features for the different parts of your business — social media marketing, customer service, and analytics. Sprout Social’s helpful tools include:
Screenshot from Google Ads
Price: Free. The amount you’ll spend on your paid ads is all up to you.
When it comes to paid advertising, Google Ads is one Internet marketing tool you can rely on. Using this pay-per-click (PPC) platform, you can boost organic site traffic, phone calls, and store visits with engaging ads. Google Ads lets you set and adjust your monthly ad budget to help your business attract more customers and grow.
Screenshot from Facebook Ads Manager
Price: Depending on your budget for Facebook ads
As for the social media side of paid advertising, Facebook has its own platform called Facebook Ads Manager. It’s an ad creator, manager, and analytics tool for Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and Facebook Audience Network.
Ads Manager has the features you need to promote your business and its offers on Facebook and its related platforms. Through the tool, you can craft ads and run them across multiple apps. You can also ensure that you’re creating the right ads and reaching the right audience with Ads Manager’s A/B testing and ad targeting features. And finally, the tool’s reporting features help you gain real-time insights from your ad performance.
Screenshot from WordStream
Price: $49/month, with feature upgrades from $20/month
WordStream Advisor is made specifically for small- to medium-sized businesses. Its goal is to simplify online advertising from creating advertisements to monitoring campaigns. Featuring 20-Minute Work Week, WordStream Advisor helps you execute optimizations at a click of a button.
This innovative technology calls your attention in case of business growth opportunities and account structure suggestions grounded on user data. What’s more, since you don’t have to open multiple tabs, you can replicate success across different platforms instantly.
Screenshot from BuzzSumo
Price: Free, with plans from $79/month to $2,868/year
Are you keen on writing high-performing, compelling content? BuzzSumo might be the perfect content marketing tool for your small business. It focuses on content discovery, research, influencers, and trend and comment tracking. With BuzzSumo in your marketing arsenal, you can create content that’ll boost your engagement and online presence.
Screenshot from Grammarly
Price: Free, with premium plans starting at $12/month. Business plans start at $12.50/member per month.
Grammarly is a handy AI-powered writing assistant that checks for grammatical errors, clarity issues, and readability. Its advanced algorithms detect problems with punctuation, wordiness, and style. Moreover, it aligns its suggestions with the context of your sentences. Grammarly is also capable of detecting plagiarism.
You can use this Internet marketing tool on almost any site with its dedicated browser extension or download it to your computer or mobile device. This way, your written content will come out more polished, engaging, and effective.
Screenshot from WordPress.com
Price: Free, with plans costing from $4 to $45/month
Don’t get this next digital marketing platform confused with its open-source counterpart, WordPress.org. WordPress.com makes building websites and sharing content easy, with plenty of website themes and built-in tools to choose from.
You can start by picking the perfect theme for your brand’s website, customizing its layout, and installing the best plugins on your site. Plus, WordPress.com lets you build your own digital storefront and works with tools like Google Analytics for a broader online reach.
Screenshot from HubSpot
Price: HubSpot CRM is free, while the company’s other products have premium plans starting at $50/month.
HubSpot combines marketing, sales, customer service, content management, and operations in a robust customer relationship management (CRM) platform. It comes with tools to help you gain more leads, serve customers better, build powerful websites, and more.
Currently, HubSpot offers free and paid versions of its CRM platform and set of features. The free version gives you access to tools like email and form builders, sales CRM tools, and helpdesk tools. Meanwhile, HubSpot’s premium solutions let you reach more optimal results with advanced features.
Screenshot from Pipedrive
Price: $12.50 to $99/user per month
Like HubSpot, Pipedrive focuses on CRM. It has reached remarkable numbers since its launch. For instance, the software has helped companies close 28% more sales after a year. Pipedrive also automates a million tasks weekly, a testament to its top-notch marketing automation capabilities.
This sales platform offers a user-friendly interface — just label the phases of your sales pipeline, fill it with deals, and move those transactions around. Moreover, Pipedrive revolves around different sales activities rather than the final sale. Use the tool to prioritize specific tasks. And for better monitoring, Pipedrive can work with over 275 integrations.
Screenshot from Google Analytics
Price: Free
To know if your online efforts, like SEO, social media, Google Ads, and content marketing, are paying off, you’ll need Google Analytics. The tool lets you collect, manage, and analyze data. Using the reporting tools in Google Analytics, you gain access to valuable insights into your performance online.
Powerful and highly customizable, Google Analytics can help you identify which elements in your website or app consumers are responding well to, and which areas you need to improve.
Screenshot from Google Search Console
Google Search Console revolves around a website’s Google Search performance. GSC’s features include Search Analytics, a tool that helps you optimize your content. Through Search Analytics, you can see how many impressions and clicks your site gained over time. Furthermore, the feature lets you look at the search terms that ranking for and your current position on Google searches.
Price: $24 to $249/month, with the option to avail a custom Enterprise plan
Screenshot from Crazy Egg
Next up on our best digital marketing tools list is Crazy Egg, a website optimization tool with a distinct approach to marketing analytics. It offers visual reports and records user sessions to help you see user locations, areas of navigation, and trouble spots within your website. Additionally, Crazy Egg features A/B testing with useful data and insights.
Screenshot from Hotjar
Price: Free, with premium plans starting at $39
Similar to Crazy Egg, Hotjar creates interactive heatmaps of user clicks and actions and records individual sessions. But what sets Hotjar apart from Crazy Egg is that it collects data from surveys and feedback polls. By leveraging Hotjar’s heatmaps, session snapshots, and survey analytics, you’ll see how and what your site is used for.
Screenshot from Kissmetrics
Price: Silver and Gold plans cost $299 and $499, respectively. You can also go for a custom Platinum plan.
Positioning itself as a direct competitor to Google Analytics, Kissmetrics delivers advanced analytics based on user behavior. It lets you connect data to your users, assess the buyer’s journey across devices, and see drop-off points in user flows. More importantly, you can obtain fresh insights that’s not just limited to page views and bounce rates.
Kissmetrics is available for E-commerce and Software as a Service (SaaS) businesses. Both versions come with metric overviews, user and activity reports, and advanced BI reporting, among other features.
Having the right tools in your arsenal is an important step in ensuring the success of your digital marketing strategies. But after you’ve secured these tools, you still need to jump through hoops to deliver the best service to your customers.
Speak with a chief marketing officer from Growth Rocket and let’s discuss how we can help grow your business further.
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